The present invention relates generally to computer networks, and more particularly to tools for building a network site.
The Internet is a world-wide network of interlinked networks connected by specific protocols (e.g., the Internet Protocol (IP)). The Internet provides for file transfer, remote login, electronic mail, news and other services. The World Wide Web (the "Web") is a hypertext based system for finding and accessing Internet resources. Hypertext refers to specific content elements within a document that contain links to other documents. A user desiring to retrieve information from the Web invokes a browser, a client program that runs on a client computer (Windows, Mac or UNIX environment), allowing a user to display documents retrieved from the Web.
Information is organized on the Web in web sites. A web site is a collection of linked files resident on a server that may be accessed by a browser application. Typically, the web site contains an initial page (the "home page"), which is displayed when the browser first accesses the site. The web site may include one or more other pages which may be accessed by selecting links resident on the home page or other pages within the web site.
The process of constructing a web site includes identifying content for display, structuring the content, building the web site, and transferring the final product to a web server. The process of building the web site includes creating the hypertext mark-up language (HTML) associated with the links for a particular page of content.
After a web site has been constructed, the HTML files (pages) are stored in a file structure. As was described above, the pages of the web site contain one or more links to other pages in the site. The links provide a navigational structure for traversing pages in the web site.
A conventional file structure includes one or more structural elements and files. Examples of structural elements are folders or directories. A folder is a placeholder for files designated at the same hierarchical level. A directory is a placeholder for one or more folders or files. Directories and folders themselves do not contain content and merely provide a hierarchy for the storage of files. Files include content and are elements in the hierarchy. However, files are not used to define the hierarchy. That is, in conventional file systems, individual files do not contain sub-structure or super-structure. Sub-structure refers to files related to a given file but at a next hierarchical level below the given file in the file structure. Conversely, super-structure refers to files related to a given file but at a next hierarchical level above the given file in the file structure.